


friendly fire

by apeirophobia



Category: DCU, Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: Dubious Consent, F/M, Gen, M/M, Miscarriage, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Power Imbalance, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-15 09:24:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10553950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apeirophobia/pseuds/apeirophobia
Summary: When GQ is twenty-five the world doesn't end and neither does he (sometimes he just wishes it did).In which Flag blurs professional lines, June refuses to play by the rules, and GQ doesn't know how to say no.Or, a love letter to the devolution of GQ's mental state, post-Midway City.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the DCEU Kink Meme prompt: [Submission Kink, Dub-Con, Power Play] Edwards is a good solider, Flag says jump and he won't even ask how high, he already knows what is expected of him and is off the ground before the order is finished. So when Flag asks him to bend over and take it? Of course he does that to, whether he wants it or not.

 

There's something to be said for dying, and there's something to be said for still being alive when you really didn't intend to be. GQ volunteered to set off the bomb, to blow up Incubus (and, incidentally, El Diablo as well) with no intention of coming back alive and yet--and yet he finds himself, gasping for breath, in the rubble of a Midway-City subway platform. The world--surprisingly--has not ended. Or, he supposes, he shouldn't be surprised. He didn't intend to die for nothing. He was willing to die to give the Squad a chance to stop the Enchantress and save the world. He was willing to die to give Rick a chance at surviving the mission, and saving June. GQ wonders if the silence means all his friends are dead. He can't possibly be the only survivor? That wouldn't be right. He's lost too many friends already. And he'd thought...he'd thought after putting down team Bravo, after realizing the extent of fucked that Rick had gotten them, after everything...(he'd thought the bomb would be an easy way out). He gags up river water, and shivers. His skin is exposed where fire and electricity tore through his wet-suit, but he is alive. Bruised and shaken, but very much alive.

He can hear nothing over the ringing in his ears as he takes in his war-torn surroundings. _What time is it?_  he thinks as he looks at the lightening sky. Did he miss ten minutes, or ten hours? The stars suggest that the threat is long over, but the silence says that the evacuation order hasn't been lifted yet. He wonders if he's the only living soul left in the city.

He trusted Rick, he thinks wildly, he trusted his word, even after--everything. After getting entangled with Waller, and falling for June, and inadvertently acquiring Task Force X on top of their original team. _Instead_ of their team, GQ thinks bitterly, as it comes back to him that the team he's been a part of for the past two years is no more. He wonders distantly how his life got so fucked so quickly. Three days ago he was the team leader of a covert black ops team that fought terrorists--not gods. Three days ago June was stable and Waller was just a voice on the phone, a distant threat that Rick did his best to shield them from. Three days ago the world wasn't ending.

GQ trusted Rick (his first--and almost last--mistake, but he knows he'd make it again in a heartbeat, because if GQ has a strength--besides strategic fighting and expert marksmanship--it's hypercritical self-awareness), and his men trusted him, and now they're all dead and GQ is supposed to be too. If he was dead he wouldn't have to think about this, wouldn't have to deal with this. Wouldn't have to deal with shaking hands and a broken wrist and this ringing in his head. Wouldn't be standing at ground zero of a crater he helped make, wondering how he's still alive.

GQ's left leg twists under him when he steps forward, and he stumbles for a moment before catching himself on one of the few pillars still standing in the bombed out station. A shock of pain radiates up his thigh, sharper than the ache that encompasses the rest of his body, as his leg threatens to give out on him. He thinks (wistfully) of dying here, of just letting go and crumbling into a ball and not getting up again. But GQ wasn't raised to give up, and he wasn't raised to fail, so he grabs onto the nearest piece of rubble and begins to climb.

 

* * *

 

The thing about Rick is--he's not as good of a guy in real life as he is on paper. He's the youngest colonel in history, sure, and he's a brilliant team leader, but he's also an opportunist and as ambitious as he is patriotic. He follows his own ethics and morals and--most of the time--they're good ones. But the thing is sometimes...sometimes Rick Flag is just a man, not a beacon of moral upstanding. Sometimes Rick Flag just  _wants_. He wants something he can hurt, something he can control (and June...Rick is so gone for the girl, loves her like nothing else, but he can _not control her_ ). Sometimes he wants something easy, something uncomplicated.

GQ is controllable and uncomplicated in all the ways that June isn't. Easy to take advantage of, easy to take for granted. GQ's got that look like a boy who's never been told enough that he's loved, and they've been doing this dance of discretion and exploitation for six months before Amanda Waller comes into their lives. Rick Flag was a great soldier, on his way to becoming a great man, when he met Amanda Waller. GQ blames Waller for the spiraling chaos that his life has become in the past eighteen months. With Waller came higher clearance, and more missions with fuzzy details--and half the time GQ knew Rick was holding out on the truth, and other times he knew even Rick didn't know it. With Waller, Rick got more power than he knew what to do with and a collar he couldn't take off. When Waller came into Rick's life, they all got collared, even if they didn't know it yet. GQ is bound to Rick through honor and loyalty, Rick is bound to June through love and devotion, and June is bound to Waller through fear and intimidation. So, in a way, Waller owns them all.

When Waller pauses in the doorway of Rick and June's kitchen, GQ feels like he's been caught. Strictly speaking, members of the armed forces are not supposed to socialize with each other outside of work (strictly speaking, commanders in the armed forces are not supposed to fuck their subordinates), so when GQ meets her gaze from across the kitchen island and June stills beside him, one arm still wrapped around his shoulders, and Waller _smirks_ GQ knows what this must look like--some sort of modern ménage à trois. The way June's fingers tighten around GQ's arm, as if to stop him from stepping forward, from putting himself in the line of fire, belies her intentions. June, the human (June, the civilian), is frightened by Amanda Waller. June as the The Enchantress, the living embodiment of an ancient deity, doesn't give a fuck. June raises an eyebrow suggestively and Waller knows that the Enchantress could burn this whole apartment building down, kill everyone in it, before Waller could get her briefcase open. GQ doesn't entirely understand the finer details of the bureaucratic devil versus ancient demon stare-down in front of him, but it feels like mutual blackmail.

 

"She prefers _priestess_ , actually," June says, like she read GQ's mind (and she probably did), hooking her chin over his shoulder as he makes dinner. GQ takes in the warmth of her embrace--like it can block out the coldness of Waller's smile--working around her arms as she clings to him. There's nothing he minds less than June's tenacious affection--even if it comes seeped in 7,000 year old protective tendencies. June lets out a sound that's equal parts growl and curse, into his shoulder, and when he looks towards the doorway Waller is gone. GQ sighs in relief, and feels the tension leave June's frame.

 

"Does she talk to you all the time?" GQ asks, now that they're alone, "Or is it just like a presence in the back of your head?" He's thought about it, thought about what it must be like to share your mind with someone else (with _something_ else). With someone thousands of years older and infinitely more powerful. He can't imagine it...he doesn't even likes sharing Flag with Waller.

 

"It's kind of like when you get a song stuck in your head," June says, disentangling herself from him to sit at the counter, "You go about your day, but you never really forget it," and GQ wonders what the Enchantress is saying right now.

"Sometimes I almost forget she's there," June says a little distantly, like she's listening to something only she can hear, "...but she still knows everything," she says, and gives GQ a pointed look. GQ can hear Rick and Waller talking in hushed but urgent tones in the foyer, and he wonders if the Enchantress knows that he's had Rick's dick in his mouth more times in the past six months than Waller's allowed her to manifest, ever. He wonders if she's told June.

June leans forward conspiratorially and says, "She likes you," and when her lips brush his cheek it feels like absolution. 

 

"Was that the Enchantress, or was that you?" GQ asks, and he's only half-joking. He knows how gray autonomy can be.

 

"She doesn't control me," June says with a smile, and it's meant to reassure, but all he hears is _who controls you?_

 

Later, after dinner, Rick's hand curls into GQ's hair while they're lying on the couch, and GQ thinks of June's words. Rick's touch is just a shade more possessive than tender and it feels eerily similar to how he gripped GQ's hair the first time they...the first time, in Afghanistan. GQ exhales shakily at the memory. June is asleep beside him, her head pillowed on one of GQ's arms, forcing him to lie still so as to not disturb her, but he doesn't mind. Rick's fingers leave his hair, tracing over the shell of his ear and soothing over the scars behind it, that hide under his hair, before trailing down his neck.

GQ keeps his eyes on the television and tries not to think about how good it feels.

 

* * *

 

Rick slams the door to his temporary office violently, and GQ--who grew up with a dad that broke shit when things didn't go his way--decidedly does _not_  flinch. Rick doesn't scare him. He's been through worse than this before--whatever _this_ is. Only two things can key Rick up like this: Waller and June. One's been missing for nineteen hours, so GQ can take a wild guess which one his commanding officer just got off the phone with. He looks up from the subway maps he's been studying, meeting Rick's gaze.

 

"On your knees," Rick says, his voice soft. It's a surprising contrast to his previous actions. 

 

"What?" GQ says, his brain having not caught up to the situation--between the closed door, and the look in Rick's eyes. It's a little like a fantasy he might have had once, and never admitted to. It's a little more frightening in reality.

 

"On. your. knees," Rick repeats, stalking towards GQ, closing the space between the door and desk, wrapping his fingers around the strap on GQ's vest and pulling him off-balance. GQ goes without protest, but he's still confused. This isn't the first time they've done this, but this is the first time Rick's gone this far (and GQ thinks of it as Rick, not them, not them together, because this is about whatever Rick wants, it always is, always has been).

 

"Rick--" GQ says, and it's not a protest, it's just a momentary hesitance because the world is ending, June is missing, Waller is pissed and Rick wants to do this _now?_

 

"I need you to stop talking," Rick says, cradling GQ's face with his hands, and GQ can feel the rage beneath all that calm.

 

"Jeez--Rick," he says, and it's not offense for his own sake, it's offense for Rick's. Rick presses GQ's cheek against his army pants, grinding against the side of GQ's face when he turns his head.

 

"You know what to do," Rick says, and GQ thinks, _he really doesn't_ , but he still opens his mouth. He's done this before, of course. He's even done this with Rick before--many times--but he's still not keen on _this_  right here. The rush, the roughness. The implied threat of voyeurism with only a shoddy lock on a principal's office door between them and fifteen hundred civilians and two teams of their men. He'll accept any challenge, any command, from Rick, but that doesn't mean he likes it.

 

Rick threads his fingers in GQ's hair and tilts his head back, pushing further into his mouth. GQ breathes through his nose, his gaze resting on the office's water-stained ceiling, and tries to focus on something that's not the end of the world.

 

Rick's grip on his hair slowly tightens as the minutes tick by--his fingers clenching every time GQ absentmindedly swirls his tongue around Rick's cock. He's not entirely present, his mind far from the ache in his jaw and the burn in his throat. One hand is fisted in the fabric of Rick's pants to keep his balance, the other resting on his thigh to prevent Rick from choking him--even when he's running on autopilot, he has to be pragmatic. Just as his knees are turning numb Rick pulls back, throwing GQ off-balance. Rick catches him by the front of his shirt, pulling him up and turning him around, until he's pressed against the edge of the desk. GQ's head hits the surface of the desk with just enough force that he doesn't register Rick's hands pulling at his uniform until his pants are half off and Rick has never had to ask for permission--that would be an insult to GQ's loyalty--but to not even ask for cooperation? That's an insult of another color.

 

"You think too loudly," Rick says, and GQ laughs. If he doesn't laugh he'll cry (and then he'll have to think about _that_ ). He really doesn't want to think about that. He can't seem to help it. There's a very real chance the world might be ending and GQ should  _not_ be getting off on it. Off on the absolution in Rick's voice.

 

"You would do anything for me," Rick says, hands digging into GQ's hips harder than is strictly necessary to keep him still, and GQ takes a shuddery breath, trying to steel himself against the rising panic--Rick's hands don't promise gentleness. He knows he'll be left with bruises (if he lives long enough for them to bloom), like he'll be left with the burn inside him. He makes a sharp, involuntary noise when Rick does something that hurts more than GQ expects--his fingers curled against the desktop and his lip bitten in an attempt to muffle any further noise--and he sucks in a breath when Rick does something else that _really_ doesn't. His body contemplates arousal--before remembering the hundreds of people within earshot--and his pulse stutters in his throat.

 

GQ nods against the wooden tabletop, and thinks, _yes_. GQ is pledged to his country and to God, but first and foremost he is sworn to Rick.

 

"That's my good boy," Rick says, his teeth scraping against the back of GQ's neck, and the warmth of his praise almost makes up for the pain. Almost.

 

* * *

 

In the hospital, after, (after his hand on the bomb and Rick's voice on the radio) after the end of the world, after ten thousand volts through his body, GQ wakes up. He wakes up with magic in his veins and a heartbeat that's not his own. He wakes up alone.

After, June comes to visit him.

Her eyes fill with tears as she takes in his appearance. He didn't think he looked that bad. She traces the scar along the left side of his jaw, fingertips so gentle on his newly mended skin, and whispers, "I'm so sorry."

 

"It wasn't your fault," he says, even though it kind of was. It feels like the right thing to say, even if it is a lie.

 

Rick failed to pull the trigger--June tried to destroy the world--there's a lot of blame to go around. Everyone failed at something--GQ failed to die, for instance. And now things are...complicated. GQ hates complicated--Rick wanted GQ to be uncomplicated so he just...was--GQ doesn't know how to undo an order. GQ doesn't know how to fail (GQ doesn't know what he hates). Rick wanted him to be _his_ in word and body and total compliance so GQ was. June wanted him to be alive (so he was). In some ways Rick and June were a perfect match. It was all the same. Even if it was sold as love or duty; it was still being controlled, being compliant. It was still bending to someone else's will. Except with Rick he still had the illusion of a choice, and with June he didn't stand a chance.

 

"You were going to die," June says desperately, and he knows that she feels like she didn't have a choice either. June is not a soldier--she's not used to making terrible decisions--she couldn't see a friend in danger and _not_  do something.

 

"I _did_ die," GQ says, like it's just occurring to him, and horror dawns on his face, "I remember," he says, "I remember being dead."

 

He remembers. He remembers being _here_ and then not, and then he remembers nothing. Remembers waking up hours later with glass in his feet and water in his lungs, a picture of disorientation. He knows now, June saved him (June brought him _back_ ). He wasn't _going_ to die, he _did_ die. He died and June brought him back. The Enchantress is gone now, but he and June are still here. It has to mean something. Maybe it means he's very lucky (maybe it means he isn't). All he knows is the stench of death clings to both of them in a way that he shouldn't be able to smell. He meets June's gaze, a plane of tragedies--already decided and only now realized--reflected in his eyes, when he says, flatly, "June, what did you do?"

 

June sits beside his bed, her fingers playing with the edge of GQ's blanket anxiously, before she says, "When I was in the subway, when...when her brother was dying, she tried to latch onto the nearest living thing in a bid to save herself," and GQ hopes to God it isn't who he suspects, before she says, "My son," and crushes the small foolish hope he dared to have.

 

GQ feels like he's been hit in the chest with another ten thousand volts, when June says, "I couldn't save him, I couldn't...I couldn't hold onto him," the tone of her voice--as she's clearly vying for his...exoneration--just cuts through him, "You were easier to hold onto, and I couldn't...I couldn't save both of you, I had to choose."

 

GQ slowly presses his hands to his face in aguish, trying to keep his composure--for whom, he has no idea--paying no mind to the many wires and needles that pull on his skin as he moves. He loves June, she's a good person who's never meant him any harm--who's never even wished him any harm--and that makes her a precious rarity in his life. She is his friend, and he cares deeply for her, but right now he can't bear to look at her. He feels the strength of his own pulse in the palms of his hands, pressed against his burning eyes, and he knows that her words are true. He's alive at the price her child's life, and the harsh catching of breath in his--otherwise--perfectly functioning lungs is just the price of guilt he has no choice but to pay.

 

"It's really not fair," he says dazedly, thinking of the future they could have had. The future they should have had, with their child (without him), and June says, "It was just a fantasy."

 

"I told him, if he had to chose," she says, and GQ can tell she's striving for matter-of-fact, "Choose the world over me," and GQ understands _why_  she chose to save him instead but it doesn't lessen the pain, can't lessen the guilt.

 

"Is this...is this a punishment?" GQ asks, and he doesn't know if it's for him, or if he's just the instrument. It feels like it is, like it's a sentence. Whether one considers life to be a burden or a gift, GQ feels like he's done nothing to deserve either one.

 

"No," June says, with a kindness in her eyes that makes GQ feel like crying, "This is a choice," and he wants to scream at her...complacency. At her seeming ability to reconcile a situation that GQ can barely wrap his mind around.

 

"Does Rick know?" he asks, and when she shakes her head he lets out a sigh of relief. GQ knows that a certain amount of ignorance is necessary to survival. Personally he wishes he was blessed with a bit more.

 

June takes his hand and GQ realizes that she's saying good-bye, "I hope you can forgive me when I tell you that I can't do this anymore," she says, and he nods in understanding. His heartbeat races under her fingertips before June presses her fingers harder into his wrist, listening for something familiar, and tears well up in her eyes.

 

"I'm sorry," he says, and he doesn't know if he means  _I'm sorry it's come to this_ or  _I'm sorry you chose me_.

 

"If you ever think you're so close to having everything you ever wanted, only to lose it, it probably means you never really had it in the first place," June says, like it's a secret, and it sounds like _I love you_. It's sounds like too late. Between Rick and June, GQ always feels like he's playing catch-up.

 

"I wouldn't know," GQ says, "I've never been close to having anything I've ever wanted," he says, looking at June meaningfully, and he thinks,  _I love you too_. He tells himself, he's never been close to having anything he's ever wanted--Rick, June, a family, happiness--because GQ's never deluded himself into believing that they were in any way a possibility.

 

"You might be closer than you think," June says, and kisses him.

 

There is nothing of the Enchantress left in June, but when her lips press to GQ's he feels a faint spark.

 

* * *

 

"Pretty boy's looking like he had a little fun last night," Harley says, sounding way too pleased, when GQ climbs into the chopper (with a _slight_ limp). He doesn't know Harleen Quinzel well--just knows _of_ her--but he knows that she's highly observant and that he's so fucked. _Literally and figuratively_ , he thinks, trying not to fidget as she gives him a critical once-over.

 

"I was overseeing evacuations last night," GQ says, but the rasp in his voice gives him away. He knows how this looks. Knows how _he_ looks. Fucked out (and the kicker is, he _was_ overseeing evacuations last night). Too bad he was seeing the surface of Flag's desk just ten minutes ago.

 

"Is that what they're calling it these days?" Harley quips, waggling her eyebrows suggestively, and the prisoner beside her--Lawton--laughs. GQ puts on his headset and tries to ignore them.

 

"Hey, cutie," Harley says a couple of minutes later, and it takes GQ a moment to realize she's talking to him, "You gotta hickey on your neck," she says, and GQ touches his neck in instinct a second before common sense tells him that's not a good idea. The skin beneath his fingertips is unbroken--he should have remembered that Rick kept all the bruises and bite marks to beneath where his jacket would cover--and GQ curses to himself as Harley laughs.

 

"Gotcha!" she says with a smile, and whispers something to Lawton. GQ grits his teeth and turns away, trying to compose himself. He eyes Rick warily as he boards the helicopter, and sees Harley's grin widen, "I'm a psychologist," she says knowingly, and GQ is endlessly grateful to hear the chopper's engine roar to life, drowning out any further commentary from Harley.

 

Rick is sitting beside GQ, but he's resolutely ignoring him. GQ figures that is as good a way to go about it as any. What happened in Rick's office wasn't their normal--not by a long shot--and GQ doesn't think he has it in him to fake normal right now. June is MIA, Waller is up to something (that Rick may or may not know about, but GQ is leaning towards _may_ ), and their mission's best chance of success lies in working with a group of criminals. GQ considers the high probability that he's going to die tonight. It's not a fear, or a comfort, it just _is_. If it comes down to saving the world, if it comes down to saving Rick--or it comes down to Rick saving June--he will die. He feels like he's already accepted that.

Accepting things has always been GQ's forte', he's just not sure it counts as a strength. 

 

* * *

 

Two days after GQ wakes in the hospital and three after he woke in a pile of what was once a Midway-City subway station, he finds himself under Rick Flag (again). His pants are on the living room floor and his button-down shirt (the only one that's loose enough to fit over his bandages--GQ thinks it's an old one of Rick's) is half off. Rick is kneeling between GQ's legs, marking up the inside of his left thigh, and GQ doesn't know why he's here--figuratively, not literally. His split lip reopened about the time Rick raked his teeth over GQ's lips in a bruising kiss, and GQ can still taste copper. He hisses involuntarily when Rick presses against his bruised ribs, closing his eyes in pain. GQ is pretty sure he's not supposed to be having sex less than twenty-four hours after being discharged from the hospital, but...He's not supposed to be alive, either, so whatever.

Rick sacrificed two teams of Special Forces for Waller's agenda. He got nearly everyone that GQ has worked with in the past three years killed in exchange for June. And June...left. She left before GQ was even discharged from the hospital. He wonders if he was dead what Rick would be doing right now (instead of GQ). He wonders if he had died in the Midway-City subway would June have still left. Would she have succeeded in saving her son, or would she have lost all three of them instead. GQ thinks about karma, and fate, and decides that between the pain and the drugs he's too high for this, or not high enough, he's not sure.

It's hard to think when Rick's inside him. He's this overwhelming presence--close and hot and undeniable--and GQ likes Rick well enough (that's a lie, GQ likes Rick a lot, probably too much), but he also likes keeping his own sanity. He has no choice but to remain in the moment--no going away like he usually does. He shakes, lightly, tremors making his touch unsteady as he traces the side of Rick's face. Rick covers his hand with his own, and GQ's heart skips a beat. It feels like...it feels like love almost, not obligation. GQ forgets, for a moment, that he's simply there for Rick's gratification. That he's not the one that Rick picked out this couch with. He forgets that it doesn't mean anything. In these moments he's not entirely himself (but then, he's not ever entirely himself anymore).

GQ leans his head back on the arm of the couch, baring his throat when he comes, and his heartbeat stutters under Rick's mouth. Every inch of GQ is bruised or abraded in some way, and the pain comes back to him when Rick presses him further into the couch, his head resting on GQ's chest. Having sex in your boss's apartment, when you're supposed to be dead, feels more than awkward. It feels wrong. This isn't just a part of a mission. This isn't a favor to a superior officer or whatever happened in that principal's office. This is...intimate in a way that GQ didn't ask for and is not entirely prepared for. They never talked about that ("that" being something GQ can not entirely define and he's not sure he wants to). They didn't really talk about this, either. Rick just showed up the morning GQ was eligible to be discharged from the hospital, and told him he'd be taking him home. Part of GQ is grateful for the direction--for the dictation--that Rick gives him, though he wonders how much of Rick's sense of obligation towards him is driven by responsibility, and how much by guilt. GQ blinks dazedly at the ceiling as Rick's runs his fingers over GQ's throat, fingers tracing his breaths as they slowly even out.

 

"What do you want?" Rick asks, his voice rough with exertion--or possibly with some emotion GQ can't place--and GQ thinks, What _does_  he want? He wants to be dead. He doesn't think that's the right answer. Rick's hand is on GQ's throat and with every breath the pressure increases, Rick's hand and Rick's want of an answer getting more persistent.

 

"I'm a soldier, it's not my place to want anything," GQ says--his pulse fluttering against the press of Rick's hand--and he thinks, he knows what he's doing, now.

 

"Bullshit," Rick says, and presses harder. GQ doesn't even flinch. He thinks, after the subway--after the Enchantress--he's not sure he _can_ be killed, least of all by Rick. "You want this," he says, and GQ thinks, maybe if Rick tells him that he wants this, he will. He notices how Rick's southern accent gets thicker when he's turned on, and it feels a little like power, even if it's not much. He wonders if he's truly desirable, or he's just available.

 

"Say you want this," Rick says, and it doesn't sound like an order--more like a plea. GQ thinks about June leaving, and Harley's knowing _look_ , and Rick locking the door to his office. He thinks about setting off the bomb in the subway.

 

"I want this," he says, and thinks,  _is it even a lie?_ GQ wants Rick to be happy, he wants to fulfill Rick's orders. If Rick wants words, if Rick wants sex, then GQ will give it to him. Rick doesn't touch him like he's the scarred and unnatural abomination he knows he is, and GQ thinks perhaps he could get used to that undeserved kindness. Rick no longer touches him like he's just something to take his frustrations out on either, which is...different. Both changes in his superior's behavior are technically good things, but they leave GQ feeling even more unsure than before. 

 

"You want this." Rick says, and he sounds... _relieved? S_ _atisfied?_ _Pleased?,_ like GQ's answer really matters to him. GQ didn't think what he wanted mattered. He still doesn't. GQ has always considered Rick his best friend, but Rick has always simply considered GQ _his_.

 

Anything Flag wants, he will get. But sometimes, GQ wants too.

 

* * *

 

GQ stares at the city beyond his own reflection in the windows of Rick's living room and counts his breaths--closes his eyes and tries to get his frenzied breathing under control. If he can get his heart to calm, if he can get the scars to fade... Maybe if he can fake normal--fake _sane_ \--well enough, he can pass evaluations and get back on active duty. The truth is he hasn't felt like himself since the bomb. Before, even. He wonders if he was unraveling before Flag came into his life. Wonders if the Enchantress saw all his loose threads and couldn't resist pulling. He feels like his skin doesn't fit anymore. He feels like he can't breathe in this apartment. He feels June's absence in every reminder of her, of her sacrifice. GQ knows he stole a life that he had no right to, and that makes him not just a bedwarmer, but a usurper.

 

"Tell me what to do," GQ says with his back turned to Rick. It's all he can offer. 

 

He feels Rick hesitate behind him, before wrapping his arms around GQ's waist and tucking his chin over GQ's shoulder. GQ stares straight ahead and tries not to notice that his heart-rate starts to slow down as his breaths' calm and match Rick's. He takes a deep breath, releasing it with a shudder, and feels Rick's arm tighten around him. It feels like a parody of comfort--like how they're a parody of domesticity. But GQ will play along, if it's what Rick wants. He doesn't know if he'll be allowed to go back to command, if he'll be allowed to truly resume his life. He knows that Rick is protecting him. Protecting him from prying eyes and Waller's preference for tidy endings. Protecting him from opportunistic scientists, and the rule of the highest bidder. Protecting him from a world he saved, that did not save him. He's not sure what his life is now. Not sure what it can be. June gave him back his life at the price of her own child, and his own sanity. People aren't supposed to come back from the dead. And where does that leave him?

 

"Come back to bed," Rick says, rubbing his thumb against GQ's stubbled jaw slowly before catching GQ's earlobe between his teeth and tugging playfully. Like they're just lovers. Like any of this is normal. GQ closes his eyes, and tries not to think too much.

He follows Rick's order.

He's a good soldier. He can become good at whatever Rick wants him to be.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave kudos and drop me a comment if you liked it! :] I love to hear what you thought! <3


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